What comes to mind when you think about the Appalachian Mountains?
Something like this? These are the Blue Ridge Mountains, an Appalachian subrange. Photo courtesy of Our State.
Or, maybe you would think about something like this: the Allegheny Plateau. Photo courtesy of bplant.org.
Yet, I doubt that your image looks like this:
The photo above is a representative shot of northern Mississippi, taken from the Southern Cultures article “The Making of Appalachian Mississippi,” by Justin Randolph (published both online and in their quarterly academic journal). In this fascinating article, Randolph unpacks how George Thompson Pound, a retired school principle in northern Mississippi, along with segregationist politicians and public planners, literally drew valleys and ridges on a map by hand to argue that the newly formed Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) should add northern Mississippi to their definition of the Appalachian region in 1966. At the time, the War on Poverty’s programs had been supporting the economic empowerment of rural Black areas, so the segregationists in Mississippi politics sought to redefine the north of the state as Appalachia, thus, by the socio-cultural understandings of the time, label it as an overwhelmingly predominant white space. In doing so, the Federal funds and programs would have to be funneled through the ARC, which diverted them away from helping black economic causes. When Pound and the segregationists in power put the map before Mississippi’s governor and congressional delegation, they knew they were submitting a forgery—no mountains nor high plateaus, characteristics of the landforms and life ways of Appalachia, extend into the Gulf Coast Plain that makes up most of the state of Mississippi. The hand-drawn mountains of Pound’s map found a willing audience with the ARC, who included a large area of northern Mississippi in their definition of Appalachia. Using modern web applications, we can show just how influential Pound’s forgery has continued to be.
To make it clear visually, let’s look at how Pound’s map (the black, white, and red image from the left side of the frame) made a lasting impact on the definition of Appalachia, which the ARC uses to this today. To accomplish this, I utilized the tool JuxtaposeJS by knight lab. I created a dynamic image that quickly displays Pound’s map (as shown in Randolph’s article) and the map of Appalachia from the ARC’s website as a GIF to see how closely they match, especially with the inclusion of (the certainly non-Appalachian) north eastern Mississippi.
Now, let’s look at another GIF I created with JuxtaposeJS to view an approximation of the area of the Appalachian mountains system (created by Georgia Map Studies) compared with the ARC’s Map—the former stops in eastern Alabama!
As Georgia Map Studies’s more accurate map of the physiographic region shows, the ARC is still using a map based on the erroneous and racially-motivated alterations drawn by Pound and fellow segregationists.
As interesting as defining a socio-cultural and geographic region is, the whole discussion would take too much time for us to properly consider here. And, while our Southern Mountains are spectacular, the star of the show here is JuxtaposeJS! I chose to tinker and play with this tool because it is free to use, requires no account, minimally invasive (you can upload directly or from dropbox, and you don’t even need to create an account to make a juxtaposition), backed by Northwestern University, and promised to have interesting integrations with WordPress! With my limited background in visual content creation, the GIFs displayed here show that even those who don’t know much about creating maps or other historical illustrations can utilize web-based platforms for historical purposes. It is a wonderful choice for creating before-and-after illustrations, which I am sure historians will love to play around with. Beyond this post, I am considering using JuxtaposeJS to demonstrate the impacts of mountain top removal in Appalachia as well as for a project focussing on the devastation to the World Trade Center from the September 11th terrorist attacks. With such an easy to grasp concept, historians can use JuxtaposeJS to compare and contrast almost unlimited images for whatever their needs are.
Of course, with such a flashy tool, we must always be practicing and teaching critical digital literacy. As Andrew Wiseman sharply warns: maps can lie, and due to the popularity of map-based content online, several propagate mis- and disinformation. Additionally, JuxtaposeJS is not perfect. The program also offer a static juxtaposition tool that web users can slide from photo to photo with a click, instead of a GIF; however, these don’t embed in WordPress and the links generated for the static juxtapositions don’t work. Users also must resize images and figure out how to play downloaded GIF files. With those limitations in mind, JuxtaposeJS is still a fun and useful tool for a variety of historical applications.
Hi Tucker!
Wow, what an insightful experience! Your investigation of Pound’s map of the Appalachian Mountains proves how beneficial online mapping tools can be. I have never played around with JuxtaposeJS but I think it would be worth my time. I read another review of this tool and you both claim that it is extremely accessible for the average Internet user, even with little to no knowledge of map-making. This is appealing to me because I see lots of benefits for students at the high-school level, and maybe even younger. In my experience with students thus far, their knowledge of geography is significantly lacking. This would be a great way to introduce them to the power of maps but also open up questions about their validity and get students engaged with critical digital literacy, as you suggest. Can you control the speed of the transitions in the GIFs? They are a little fast which might make interpretation difficult for younger viewers, or those with specific learning needs or visual impairments.
It is a great tool, and I am sure you can find applications for it! It might fit in well for k-12 education. I wish you could control the speed. There might be a way, but that would require a deeper understanding of computer/internet technology than I have. JuxstaposeJS does not have this option; however, based on the way the gif file is downloaded, I am sure that, with enough knowledge of these things, one could code playback speed. JuxstaposeJS does offer a static comparison option with a slider, too. I actually wanted to use that one, but it would not work with my website!
Hey Tucker,
Your use of Juxtapose to illustrate Pound’s map is intriguing for sure. I would honestly like to learn more about this, and appreciate that you include links to learn more. This is also a good example of how historians can use digital mapping tools to show how places and ideas surrounding them are impacted and defined by people. It seems obvious that people create maps and boundaries, but this gets overlooked in favor of what happens inside or across county/state/country borders.
I think you also covered the pros and cons of Juxtapose well. I hadn’t even considered being able to create a map in a browser as opposed to obtaining a tool that has to be downloaded and accessed as an app. Browser-friendliness is absolutely a plus. I also agree that one has to have some level of digital literacy since it seems you also have to be aware of what maps you use to juxtapose against each other.
I agree that these tools open up so much possibility. I am still in the learning phase, and I wish, however, that these tools could have a bit more options (like the control of the speed of gif). Yes, it is a great example of the social construction of maps, or at least of the idea that maps represent a purely physical space. Digital literacy is a must! It is important for us, our students, and our “publics” (for the public historians out there!).
Hey Tucker! This was a very interesting use of this tool! I agree that this would be a great mapping tool to create comparisons and visualizations of before and after shots. I used StoryMaps JS, which is a tool that is best for creating a story through an interactive map. It is interesting to the variety of versatility of mapping tool!